


Get Out of the Train

by cassiejamie



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-04
Updated: 2009-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiejamie/pseuds/cassiejamie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's pretty well addicted he realizes one day when he has to slip away to inject himself, lest Chapel notice[.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Out of the Train

"_Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death.  
To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving.  
It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death._"  
\- Jean Cocteau -  


  
At first, it's just every once in a while - a low dose here, a hypo there - to get him through the seemingly unending shifts in Medical Bay. Closing wounds, setting broken bones, healing burns, and generally saving lives, he's tied with Jim for number of double and triple shifts pulled; he has to take stims at times simply to keep from falling on his face while laboring over the bleeding bodies of away team members.

Slowly but surely his circadian rhythm gets thrown off, shot to hell by the drugs, and he adds in a sleep aide. Then something to ease the jitters, something to arouse his appetite, and finally a narcotic as the NSAIDs eventually lose all affect on him and his chronic migraines begin to interfere with his life.

He's pretty well addicted he realizes one day when he has to slip away to inject himself, lest Chapel notice, but his head is killing him and his feet hurt from being up thirty-nine hours straight, fighting to keep his friends alive. Luckily, Jim's going to survive, thank God, but Chekov's hand is never going to be the same and Sulu's got a scar on his face that's going to take some time to get used to. All in all, it could be worse and he regrets thinking such things a few minutes later when Spock, who'd arrived in the transporter room upright and talking and disappeared for the bridge before McCoy could run a tricorder over him, is rushed into the treatment room.

His face is pale, ghastly, and he's sweating profusely which alarms Bones: Vulcans don't sweat. _Spock_ doesn't normally sweat. Even when the man had gone into Pon Farr, his skin had been annoyingly dry, slick only in the places where McCoy's body had touched. Through the meager, thin bond they share, merely the beginning of something the human is a bit fearful of, McCoy can sense the agony, the pain, and he flinches himself.

With a heaved breath, Bones steels himself, forces his mind to clear from under the haze of intoxication, and says, "Get him into surgery. Call M'Benga and the others. Now."

;;

  
They don't lose him, but they come close.

Bones takes a sleeping aide with a double dose of narcotic when he crawls into bed thereafter, even as his inner physician cries out against the danger of it. He sleeps, for the first time in weeks, through the night.

;;

  
Spock is released within four short days - all hail modern medicine - but he's groggy and weak. Bones has to take a few days off simply to ensure the man won't end up smashing his head open trying to get to the bathroom, which makes him up his stims; he can't sleep while Spock needs care, he just can't.

The grogginess though is why, later, when Jim finds out and takes the problem in hand himself, Spock can honestly say he hadn't noticed. He's normally so astute and studious that it grates on him in the aftermath that he hadn't noticed his lover's suffering, yet ignorance of the reality can easily be blamed on the head injury.

At that moment though, Spock is a little confused and a lot tired and he can't even detect the subtle, nauseating scent of the drugs casting off of Bones' skin. (He hadn't noticed them before either, which he fully takes the blame for and Nyota calls denial.) He sleeps though, McCoy twitching beside him in their bed.

;;

  
Bones collapses on shift.

His heart is in overdrive, there's a slow bleed in his brain, and his stomach is split with multiple ulcers. His eyes roll back in his head; M'Benga nearly drops his tricorder when the device begins to scroll through the litany of medications in the CMO's bloodstream.

Spock just pales while Jim seethes.

;;

  
"Were you trying to kill yourself?" Jim asks him when he awakes up. No greeting, no concern, only a straightforward and angry inquiry.

"What? _No_!" He shoots back while glancing around the room for his lover fruitlessly.

"I sent him back to quarters - he was about ready to initiate a meld to see if your consciousness was even intact because of, oh, the _neurovascular_ surgery they had to do on you. And because the number of drugs in your system was enough to kill a fucking elephant." Jim's voice has risen as he spoke and lowers it forcibly, letting the rage and the bitterness at this man who is supposed to be his best friend flow out of him.

He drops his head for a second and when he lifts it, Jim asks, "How long were you taking all of it?"

"All of what?" Bones challenges, feeling unusually defiant though he can't, for the life of him, figure out why.

"Don't. I'm trying to help you - how long were you taking the drugs?"

Jim waits, knowing that it won't be long; Bones never could lie to him and even when he tried, his tells gave it away.

"Eight months," he murmurs in the end, adding, "Give or take two weeks. It's all pretty blurry, kid."

"All right." Jim swallows around the lump in his throat, horrified that he's missed this for _eight months_, that they've all missed this. He sighs and tells the man, "We're going to help you, Bones, and it's going to suck - detox is about as much fun as twentieth century dentistry - but we're going to get you through this."

"Jim..."

"You're addicted, Leonard," he interrupts. "You understand that? Addicted. You were practicing _medicine_ intoxicated on a Federation vessel."

McCoy winces, aware of the punishment that could mean for him. "Did M'Benga tell the fleet CMO?" he asks when his mouth re-wets and his tongue shrinks down to fit into his mouth again.

"Not yet. He agrees with me that jailtime isn't going to fix your addiction," Jim says.

He lets out the breath he's been holding; he could lose his license if he's reported, could spend the next five to ten in a six-by-six cell on Earth, unable to see his daughter or Spock. For a moment, he sees with crystal-clear clarity how much he stands to lose.

"I need Spock here," he tells Jim with a nod - he'll detox, he'll let them help him, but damned if he won't do it without his lover.

"In a few hours. The guy's exhausted from waiting around worrying about your ass." The banter is familiar, soothing, and he offers a smile as he squeezes Bones' hand for a second.

"Told you - we'll get you through this. Promise you that," Jim repeats.

He nods once more. "I know."


End file.
